


Labour Relations Act

by AuntyA



Category: Bleach
Genre: Alternate Universe
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-04
Updated: 2015-03-04
Packaged: 2018-03-16 06:53:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,033
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3478595
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AuntyA/pseuds/AuntyA
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A creepy new job.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Labour Relations Act

She forced her hand to stop moving, drawing back sharply from the car trunk. She curled her hands into tight fists. “What the hell Shiro! That’s fucking hideous. What is that…that thing?” She stared into the trunk with a slow growing awareness, her mouth going dry. She licked her lips, and shifted backwards awkwardly, stepping back, turning her head to the side so she wasn’t looking directly into the car trunk anymore. She had dropped her bag. Her hands were empty.

She felt slightly nauseous, she could feel the sweat starting to bead on her upper lip. “Shiro.” She called again, “Shiro, is this bunch of clothes actually a body?” She wondered if she was going to puke. “Shiro. What the hell? Is this a person?”

Shiro’s head popped back around from the driver’s side of the car, smiling in his ever so creepy way, “So. Call me Gin remember. I prefer it.” He shook his bangs out of his face and continued smiling without the smile reaching his squinting eyes. “So, I see that you have met Mr. Danwei. Would you like to check his references?” He quickly moved towards her at the back of the car, reaching a long arm in front of her to close the trunk once more with a slam.

Gin now stood between her and the car. He was a tall thin pale man. His clothes seemed to accentuate the thin. His suit coat was over his arm, his vest and pants tailored in a subtle check fabric that she thought could not have come off the rack. He seemed to sense her checking him out and made a slight movement dusting off the front of his already immaculate pants.

“So.” He seemed to say that quite a bit. “So. Yes. That is a body. And now we will need to get rid of him.” Her chin quivered. “Shiro. Who is that? Who was that in the trunk?” She wasn’t sure she wanted to know the details but felt she should ask. “Shiro.” She said a bit plaintively, “What do you mean get rid of him?”

Gin said simply, “Mr. Danwei was a manager. He was reported as being very difficult to work with for many reasons. So. We had a difference of opinion, me and him.” He patted the trunk of the car. “I’m helping him achieve his potential. Performance management strategies are my forte.”

“You killed him?” She probably sounded a bit incredulous. His eyes almost completely closed, now seemed to reflect the laughter in his tight lipped smile. “That’s what my team does. Not entirely Human Resources. You could call us ‘Labour Relations’ for a much better description of our role. More hands on, much less boring than working on staffing. So. Now we will need to dispose of him. Yes.“

“So. We had a meeting of our committee and our action items included his murder yes.” He held up his arm and patted the jacket looking for the pocket. He pulled out a small red covered book. He waved it at her and flipped through the pages. “We always have a list of possibles in any office: too entitled, whiner, too sick, liar, time thief, tardy, stupid, mean, drunk, abusive, smelly, rude, too old, inappropriate workplace relationships. You know what I mean. In his particular case, his risk analysis came up high and the committee decided to proceed.”

He turned to face her, eyes still shut into slits, but his smile was disappearing. “So. Let’s go, Torii was it? I know we received your resume but I didn’t really have time to review it yet.” She stepped back and took a deep breath through her nose. He continued, “And so, now you are a part of the team! This is a good first project for you. You’ll be good at it I think. And please remember, please call me Gin.”

She needed to prove she was able to do this. She took another deep breath, not thinking about the body, not thinking about the body, “My name is actually Shime Nawa, but I’m gonna keep calling you Shiro if you don’t mind. I don’t want to get too much into the personal until I decide to take the job.”

She took a deep breath and waved her hands at him and the car vaguely. “You know, I have met your…, that…,” she stopped. “I have met Mr. Danwei, before.” She tapped at the black leather cuffs on both wrists. “He works, worked I mean, in my old office. He always stared at my….” Gin interrupted her, leering at her and wringing his hands together, “Your boobs?”

She frowned at him, “No. The cuffs. He always stared at my cuffs. He also made weird remarks about me and bondage. And he hated when I talked to him in his office. I would always stand up in his office so he was uncomfortable sitting at his desk. And I’d stand really close to him to make him move back.” She felt the colour rising in her face.

She continued, “Mr. Danwei also had that disgusting missing front tooth, I hated talking to him. We had a dental plan so what was that about? He couldn’t balance his budgets and his spreadsheets were nonsense. All of his staff hated him and thought he slept in his car…” Shime felt her voice trail off again. Was she making excuses for murdering the guy? Trying to convince herself that he deserved it?

Still feeling a bit sick after seeing the battered and bloated corpse in the trunk, she wondered why at exactly that moment she didn’t just turn on her heel and run. Head straight for a cop. Scream. Call 112. She was calmly talking about minor workplace harassment with a murderer. In front of a corpse in a car trunk. A corpse of someone she had known at work.

Gin stepped closer and put a long fingered hand on her arm, “Shime, the easy answer to this is that Mr. Danwei was an asshole. I know that you worked with him. That is why you are here today.”

Gin nodded, “You participated in a hiring process, you met the elements of the statement of merit criteria. So. There’s a good case to be found in your skills experience and I felt there was a good argument for right fit.” He tapped the car with his other hand. “So. This is for you. My operational requirements mean I need an assistant.”

She stared at the closed car trunk. Unblinking. Feeling the bile maybe rise up again. Gin smiled, this time at her, still squinting but looking a bit less murderous. “So. Let me just say. He was afraid of you because he was a grown up man who had never had a relationship of any kind with a live human woman. He was terrible at his job and that is why he is currently lying in this car trunk looking the way he does. That is why.”

Shime looked down at his hand on her arm. White fingers against her dark jacket sleeve. Involuntarily she looked up at his face, they were standing so much closer now. His hair was so straight and pale. No wonder his online name was Shiro. Gin also seemed to fit perfectly so she doubted either name was anything like his real name. She spoke again, “I’m not actually ‘that way’” touching her leather cuffs. “I just like something tight on my wrists…” She trailed off again.

Gin squeezed her arm gently and then took his hand off her, “I don’t really care, if you must know. It’s just not important information at the moment.” He looked at her face more intently and she could see the darkness of his eyes, almost purple, for once his eyes open more than just slits. She wanted to say something but couldn’t find the words. He must have seen what he wanted in her face because he smiled again.

He started to move back around to the driver’s door. “Shime, we need to get driving if we are going to get this finished today.” He waved his hands at her and at the passenger side of the car. “So. Get in, let’s go for a drive. This neighbourhood is very pleasant with the houses and gardens but not the best place for us to be right now.”

She realized that an older woman ‘sweeping’ her balcony across the laneway was not even bothering to sweep now, just staring straight at them. Picking up her bag from where she had dropped it on the concrete when the trunk was first opened, Shime rummaged around in the bag. She put on her sunglasses and walked towards the passenger side of the car. Gin edged past the parked scooters in the crowded park space to move the driveway gate across to one side, then he got in the car. Looking back towards the trunk as if the guy in there was going to just get up again, she sat heavily in the passenger seat. She put her bag on her lap and closed her door.

Gin turned to her once he was in the driver’s seat and his suit jacket had been hung up on the hook behind him. He tilted his head, flicking his long bangs again out of his eyes. He said “So. Shime Nawa, you will help me with this task, it is part of your new role. You scored well and have now been appointed to the position. I think you will enjoy it once you get over your nervousness.” He grinned his odd smile, and she lowered her eyes. She was unsure of what had just happened but she decided not to get out of the car just yet.

She applied for many jobs. She had never had much response in the past. She had quit her previous job only recently because she felt like she was moving against the current there. It had become impossible to do any work properly. Her colleagues were not nice people. 

He was right. She had applied for this job. A job that she didn’t exactly remember applying for. She didn’t know why she had applied or what exactly the job even entailed. She must have seen the advert in one of the many many emails she got listing various opportunities. She couldn’t remember which one exactly.

There had been an online application submitted to ‘Shiro’. There had been no request for references. When she had gotten a text message about the interview she had been surprised.

Their meeting had been in front of the Family Mart maybe an hour ago. She walked up to the store, having gotten out of the taxi a block away so she could scope the place out, hoping to be early. She could see a man with very pale hair and a lovely suit standing in front of the store holding a plastic bag. She had worried then that she was dressed too casually for an interview, he looked very put together. Was he really waiting for her?

When she got closer, the man turned to face her and smiling only with his mouth, eyes squinting almost completely closed, he said “So.” his voice was excited. “You must be my applicant!” He had held out a hand to offer a can of coffee from his bag. "So. Have a coffee. Let us talk about the role."

Now, Gin started the car, put his hand behind her seat, turning backwards to reverse the car up silently into the laneway behind the office. As they drove she kept her head turned towards the car window, looking up at hydro wires, balconies, apartment rooflines, treetops. They passed a tile roof. She kept her eyes up trying not to think of the thing in the car trunk.

Gin turned onto another narrow residential street and said, “Shime, I always get turned around in Suginami. Help me look for the signs for Route 20.” He was craning his neck to look at the street signs as they drove on in the direction of the main road. 


End file.
